Various kinds of conventional color image capture devices including digital still cameras and camcorders have used a solid-state image sensor (which will be sometimes simply referred to herein as an “image sensor”) with a color mosaic filter. The color mosaic filter has a configuration in which multiple kinds of color filters with mutually different light transmission properties are arranged two-dimensionally on a pixel-by-pixel basis. Each of those color filters has the property of selectively transmitting a light ray falling within a particular wavelength range and absorbing a light ray falling within any other wavelength range. In a typical example, an R filter which transmits a red (R) ray, a G filter which transmits a green (G) ray, and a B filter which transmits a blue (B) ray are used.
However, the use of such color filters decreases the quantity of light to be incident on the photosensing section of a solid-state image sensor and lowers the efficiency with which the incoming light is used. Thus, Patent Document No. 1 discloses an image sensor which uses a “dispersing element” instead of the color filter in order to use the incoming light more efficiently. The dispersing element disclosed in Patent Document No. 1 is a phase shifter which is arranged on a pixel (photodiode) basis, and has a light-splitting function which makes a light ray representing a particular color incident on an associated photodiode and also makes a light ray representing its complementary color incident on another photodiode.